After an eight-hour flight from London, I arrived, bleary-eyed and a bit nervous, at the Indira Gandhi airport in Delhi, around 4 a.m. I was greeted by quite the assortment of people: a beaming Indian Santa Claus [Singhji], an excited but sleep-deprived bearded man [Landin] and two fellow jet-lagged travelers, who had coincidentally been on my flight [Jonathan & Peggy]. All apprehension dissolved as soon as I hit the airport parking lot. We saw a trash can with the acronym D.A.P.S on it, and Landin asked Singhji what it meant. Singhji didn't know, so Landin showed him what "daps" meant in America. You know, the fist bump thing? Yeah. From then on, I knew that Landin & I would be close buddies for the rest of the trip.
first impression of landin...see what i mean? [jonathan dipratna]
After a get-to-know-you car ride to the hotels in Gurgaon [basically a new residential section of Delhi], I found out that Landin didn't have a room for the night, so I offered to let him crash in mine. Pretty sure I shocked the hotel manager, letting a strange man come hang out in my room. Leave it to me to make an Indian social faux pas right from the start. We had to be up at 8 a.m. for breakfast at the other hotel [The Clover], which gave us two hours for showers and sleep, so it wasn't a big deal. At breakfast, I got to meet my other travel mates, and we took a quick walk to a Gurgaon strip mall that was just opening its stores. I became instant friends with my new roommate, Blair. The random pairing ended up becoming what I hope to be a life-long friendship. In fact, our group, as a whole, really lucked out on our travel mates. Everyone was incredibly nice, good-natured and intelligent, and, as a bonus, everyone seemed to appreciate each other's humor. I couldn't have traveled with better people.
Our big tourist event for the day was a visit to the National Gandhi Memorial, or Gandhi Smriti, but first we headed into Delhi for lunch at a veg restaurant in a HUGE mall. I had a dosa for the first time, and it was delish, but seemed spicy to my Indian-food-virgin mouth. Zac, Colleen & Joe [Zac & Singhji are the adventure leaders with Veg Voyages and Colleen & Joe are the founders/publishers of VegNews magazine] were being interviewed for a local tv program on veganism. If our group of twenty-four Americans didn't already stand out, we now had a film/tv crew with us to add to the chaos.
Our big tourist event for the day was a visit to the National Gandhi Memorial, or Gandhi Smriti, but first we headed into Delhi for lunch at a veg restaurant in a HUGE mall. I had a dosa for the first time, and it was delish, but seemed spicy to my Indian-food-virgin mouth. Zac, Colleen & Joe [Zac & Singhji are the adventure leaders with Veg Voyages and Colleen & Joe are the founders/publishers of VegNews magazine] were being interviewed for a local tv program on veganism. If our group of twenty-four Americans didn't already stand out, we now had a film/tv crew with us to add to the chaos.
colleen & joe with their interviewers [michael lu]
The Gandhi Memorial was peaceful and serene, with landscaped gardens and a slightly cheesy path of concrete footsteps, which marked Gandhi's walk to the prayer meeting where he was assassinated. There was also an open building with a busy mural of Gandhi's life - even the ceiling was covered in the earthy paint colors. Around the building, there were lots of signs and carved stones with quotes by and about Gandhi. Everything was so quiet; it really felt like a sacred place.
the only non-camera-shy monkey at the entrance
gandhi's path to his last prayer meeting
gandhi mural
gandhi mural & ceiling
quotes
some of the gardens
Inside the memorial, there was an area where they had preserved Gandhi's bedroom set-up and his worldy possessions. There was also an educational/art space with extensive multimedia materials to help teach about Gandhi's life and values.
jonathan, with one of the whirligig machines
a hip-hop version of see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil [blair stirek]
world peace gong outside
When we got back to the hotel, we had our group orientation meeting. I was dreading playing get-to-know-you games, but, luckily, we never got around to that. We did have appetizers and drinks [Zacji became our bartender for the majority of the trip, with his signature vodka lime soda drink]. VegNews and Veg Voyages provided us with plenty of swag, like MediMix ayurvedic soap [a new favorite of mine, despite its manly smell], a much-used mosquito-repellent night-light, and the book, A Tiger for Malgudi. Joe showed a slideshow of photos from last year's trip, and we had our first Hindi lesson from Singhji while we ate dinner.
singhji & joe at orientation [jonathan dipratna]
our dinner...i know a lot of it looks like throw up but it was sooo good [jonathan dipratna]
No comments:
Post a Comment